Ways Dana Scully Didn't Die
by MultiFandomSF
Summary: She said, 'How do I die' and he replied, 'You don't.' Read and review, please.
1. Chapter 1

**Ways Dana Scully Didn't Die

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There are many accounts to the death of Dana Scully. Different chapters, different ideas, each with the element of the unknown and unconfirmed. Clyde Bruckman told her she wouldn't die. "How do I die?" She had asked and he had answered wistfully, with a tiny smile, "You don't."

Someone said that Mulder died when he was 68, and the fact was hardly disputed. They said he died peacefully, of old age and physical weakness.

Everything about his death was never confirmed. Nobody knows where he was buried, or even if he was buried. No one knows where Scully was or went.

Sometimes people whisper, stories of the two that could have saved everyone, but saved everyone they could. They say their names in reverence, respect. They know nothing.

A parent of someone in an older settlement told a story; it's the default story, the one most people like to believe.

On a cool autumn day, Fox Mulder stared into space, and had a hunch. He was never wrong, in the end. His hair had become grey, and his face lined with wrinkles, but he still looked very much like the younger man he had been a long time ago.

He said he was going on a hike, and Dana Scully followed him with an apprehensive look on her face. No one could explain it at the time—invaders had not been spotted in almost 3 years then.

Supposedly, they ended in a valley, with a breeze stirring in the gold trees. They say the last thing Mulder must have seen was the blue sky with Scully in the foreground; her auburn hair faded but not grey.

They talked of clouds and precious things, and their voices echoed across the empty world. For hours, Scully and Mulder must have laughed, because they were remembering the good times they'd had. In a cinematic way, their lives had been so beautiful.

People say that he said something, something dignified and cool, loving and adoring and hopeful at the same time. In truth, no one knows. No one was there that admits to it, and no one saw Dana Scully again.

But they say that he said something, and softly closed his eyes to the murmur of mountain passes and distant beauty. Fox Mulder died, and Scully laid her head upon his chest and sobbed until she had rid herself of the weight she had carried since the day she met him.

All she was left with was a feeling of power and passion, of fulfillment. And a singular moment, when Clyde Bruckman responded to her half serious question with a serious answer, "You don't," and gave her a smile.

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A/N: X-Files Not mine

This was originally meant to be combined with my other story, "Only One." In the end, that story will probably have a small overlap with this one.

This story sprang from the few random bits of dialogue they planted throughout the series. Clyde Bruckman is one; there is a least one more. This probably won't go more than 4 chapters or less. I wrote this a while back, and thought I'd post it. I hold no illusions that is anything but a quick bit of bedtime writing, which, come to think of it, is how all my stories are. You decide, good or bad.

Let me know what you think, please.

Thanks for reading!


	2. A Little Ways Past the Ocean

A little ways past the ocean, Scully stands and watches the waves because a long time ago she looked away from death and now there's nothing left.

The ocean is dead. The plains are dead. The people are dead. The universe might as well be dead because all Scully can see is a quiet madness, a silent desperation. The oceans ebb and flow and eat the land away, build it up a shore away. The sun always shines dimly, and sometimes the moon comes out to play.

Sometimes Scully dreams, and other times she does not.

She is tired of the memories, assumed they'd fade with age, but really, she doesn't age. Why would she expect her brain to?

The man, she doesn't remember his name, he told her to look away. Just look away. Clyde Bruckman told her she'd never die and she pragmatically though that might not be a blessing.

It isn't.

For ages now, she's been looking for death, trying to recapture the dark shadow that nearly smothered her in a millisecond flash of ecstasy death before she pulled the curtain away and saw—she saw everything and was suddenly afraid.

Now she walks and stands alone, watches the sunset and sunrise over dead seas and ancient brittle coral beds where nothing lives save for her memories. Scully has long stopped think of herself as a messiah, destined to share humanity's achievements with distant star travelers yet to arrive. No one's coming. No one ever did.

Humanity destroyed themselves by themselves. After a long time, she's come to the conclusion that the aliens were a hoax. It's so sad and so silly after such a long time, to realize that the most important years of her life weren't important at all. But she's wandered the world and walked on the ocean bottoms and she's found the remnants and the documents before they turned to dust. Everything is dust now.

There is no grass. There is no microbe; there is only Scully. Blood red hair against the grey seas and the red dust and bare skin. She has traced her body with knives and guns have never pierced her skull. The ocean never crushed her; she has not lost consciousness in a century or so. She doesn't know. There's nobody to know.

For a long time, she's been running across the world silently looking for the black spaces, for bones, for anything that would signify death. Funny, how long she examined it, touched it, experienced it with others, and now she can no longer recall its smell, its feel or emotion.

Once every decade, she screams for it. Shrieking into the wind, Dana Scully can be heard all over the planet as she howls and begs for them to give her life back. Them, whoever they are. There is no God, there are no aliens, there is only her. And she wants her life back. She wants her life to end, like it should have.

Once in a decade, Scully closes her eyes and does not dream. She looks to the stars and the world around her and she does not dream. Death, she thinks, is this.

Once in a decade, Scully closes her eyes and does not dream.

She does not dream; once in a decade, Scully closes her eyes and cries and tries to find a way to die.

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Fin.

I can say with good reason that this is the final X-Files fic I will write. I can't believe I finished this story.

If you liked, or didn't, or read it simply, leave a review.

Thank you. And thanks to the X-Files, who I am in no way related to.


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